being tossed against the wind with a fork of five prongs, or with a shovel. The Cingalese in winnowing, use a fan made of split bamboo, to blow away the chaff. I have seen the man holding the sieve, mounted a few steps high, and watching for wind, while another below with a fan has blown the chaff from the heap. So Mr. Ward says, the Hindoos winnow corn by waving the fan backwards and forwards with both hands.

Psalm, cxli. 7. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.

Bruce mentions, that after leaving Garigana, and coming to a village of the same name, the bones of the inhabitants who had all died of hunger the year before, being unburied, his party had to encamp among them. Imagine the horror of the Jews at such a spectacle, among whom, to have no burial was reckoned among the greatest calamities; whose land was thought polluted by the exposure even of criminals; and to whom the touch of a dead body was a defilement requiring ablution.

Psalm, cxliv. 8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity; and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.-Isaiah, xliv. 20. He feadeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

The allusion is probably to the ceremony of holding up the hand in swearing, or in giving a vote, or lifting up the hands in worshipping an idol. The phrase "hand over head" is founded on the manner in which the covenant was taken in 1638, when 60,000 about Edinburgh thought proper to take it. The phrase used to be," Hand over head, as men took the covenant."

Proverbs, ii. 4. If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasurers.....-Isaiah, xlv. 3. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. Matthew, xxv. 18. But he that had received one, went and digged in the earth, and hid his Lord's money. In despotic countries, property from its insecurity, is often buried; and in consequence of removals, wars, and the like, vast quantities appear to have been lost. Some make it their business to search for buried riches; and treasure-trove was once in Europe a branch of revenue. The security afforded by the British government in Kandy, is said to have brought to light a great deal of buried treasure.

Proverbs, xi. 21. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.

Hand in hand as a token of swearing. Bruce mentions the form of oath. Our ceremony of shaking hands is a profession of exerting our active powers on behalf of one another.

Proverbs, xxvii. 22. Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar, among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.

The Turks sometimes pound criminals in great iron mortars used in pounding rice. It seems to have been a punishment under the Kandian tyrants. I have a drawing by a Cingalese, of the treatment received by the family of Elypola, one of Raja Singha's ministers, in 1814, and which led to his dethronement. In the first part of the picture, the king is represented sitting in his palace, with one of his queens having her face in the opposite direction. Elypola is prostrate before him with his wife and five children bebind, guarded by a sentinel. In the second division, one executioner is ripping open one of the children, and another holding up the reeking

head of the next, just cut off, and ready to drop it into a mortar. Next, the unhappy mother appears with the pestle lifted in her hands to bray the head of her infant. It appears from the published accounts of this inhuman business, that the poor woman let fall the pestle once, and fainted away. Lastly, three children appear on a precipice with bound hands, and fastened to a large stone, intended to sink them in the pond into which an executioner behind is about to precipitate them,

Proverbs, xxx. 19. And the way of a man with a maid.

It seems too much the custom with critics, instead of weighing the renderings and opinions of men in superior circumstances for understanding the force and signification of Hebrew words and idioms founded on some peculiar usage,-to propose some conjecture of their own,-The opinions of learned men on this difficult passage are so numerous, and the readings of versions so different, that it is easier to select than to theorize.-The reader may find a very sensible extract from Vitringa, in Parkhurst, under, III, but I am inclined to prefer the opinion of Calmet's ingenious and judicious editor, as it agrees better with the seclusion of females in Eastern countries;-and gives the writer's difficulty the appearance of being founded on popular observation, as proverbs are. That the passage relates to a pure virgin seems indisputable, for though in one view, she illustrates, in the next verse she is opposed to the adulterous woman. This way, appears to be the way of a suitor, after encouragement, when the maid, or her father, drops him for a better. The courtship comes to nothing; and, as it happens with the ship in the sea, the serpent on a rock, the eagle in the air, and the adulteress, nobody is the wiser-no traces remain of the projected match,

The affair on one side, would be a family secret; and the youth, whatever might be his feelings, would not, I imagine, be fond of telling the story.

Ecclesiastes, xi. 1. Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

The Cingalese sow a field after it has been watered, carrying a bag under the left arm. They proceed without the briskness of a European sower; and seem to scatter the seed unevenly.

Ecclesiastes, xii. 5. And the grass-hopper shall be a burden.

It seems generally admitted, that the genuine reading is, "The locust shall burden itself;" and that the spare skeleton of the locust was an ancient emblem of old age. Niebuhr met with an Arab, who drew a striking comparison between the locust, and other animals, reminding him of Rev. ix.

Solomon's Song, iv. 9. Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.

-Seen on part of the veil's being blown aside.

Solomon's Song, v. 3. I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

Many Cingalese, as well as Hindoos, wash their feet before going to rest; but I do not find that the former, when called, excuse themselves for not rising, under pretence of soiling their feet, as the latter do.

Solomon's Song, vii. 1. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!

The bride's shoes are, with natives of rank in Ceylon, and, I believe, generally in the east, made of velvet, richly ornamented with gold and silver, not unlike a pair in the tower worn by Queen Elizabeth.

Isaiah, iii. 16-24.

......

And it shall come to pass, that instead of a sweet smell, there shall be a stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. See also chapter xxii. 15-19; Genesis, xix. 24; Exodus, xiv. 30; 1 Samuel, ii. 8; Lamentations, iv. 5.

The

The retaliating principle of divine government is often observable. Besides the immediate purpose of manifesting the divine displeasure, it saps the foundation of superstition. The inhabitants of the plain were fire-worshippers, and were destroyed by the object of their adoration. The Egyptians were eminently careful of the dead;-and were drowned, washed ashore, degraded, and devoured. plagues of Egypt rendered the objects of worship the sources of torment.-1 Kings, xvii. 1.; chap. xviii. 38; James, v. 17, 18.-The Phoenecians worshipped the visible heavens-the agent of the earth's fertility. How very strikingly must their astrological predictions, founded on past observation, have been falsified! Baal's priests found they had no influence in procuring fire:—and no rain descended but in answer to prayer to the God of Israel, and after idolatry had been legally put down.

Isaiah, iii. 18. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet.

Cingalese children often wear a ring about their ankles. Malabar and Moor children wear rings hung about with hollow balls, which tinkle as they run.